1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer system and, in particular, to a method of selecting, type matching and manipulating resource objects by a computer program using the Graphical User Interface (GUI) portion of a computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 illustrates the GUI portion of a typical computer system. Computer 100 includes a monitor 110, a keyboard 120 and a mouse 130. One or more windows 140 may be displayed on screen 150 of monitor 110 to allow the user to perform different tasks concurrently. A cursor icon 160, generally, but not necessarily, resembling an arrow is also displayed on screen 150 and is controlled by mouse 130. Generally, when more than one window 140 is displayed on screen 150, the input from keyboard 120 is directed to the foreground window.
Several application programs are executed by the computer system. A user of the computer system can communicate with the application programs executed by the computer system via the GUI portion of the system. As modern computer systems encompass a variety of components, both at the hardware and at the software level, GUIs allow users to control the components of the computer system via an abstract representation of the computer system displayed by the GUI. For example, the user can print a document on a printer attached to the computer by dragging a document icon (i.e. moving the mouse icon over the document icon and then holding down the mouse button while moving the mouse) displayed by the GUI onto a printer icon and dropping (i.e. releasing the mouse button) the document icon onto the printer icon, as shown in FIG. 2. However, if the user attempts to perform an operation via the GUI which is not supported by the computer system (i.e. the user attempts to drop the document icon on an icon representing the computer to which the printer represented by the printer icon is connected), little or no feedback is provided to the user (i.e. nothing happens). As the goal of GUIs is to simplify users interaction with the computer system, there is a need for a method of navigating the GUI which allows users to perform the operations supported by the computer system without requiring familiarity with the details of the interaction of system components.